Paper Under The SIM Is For Real

I ignored this for a long time. But kept having the ratio turn off, and RadioControl was no help. Not a reset, just turned off. Sometimes I could turn it on, then tap the red phone and it immediately turned off (turned Chime on so I could tell). Once got 6 turn on/offs in two minutes. Drove me crazy. So decided to try the "paper thing" before a hard reset, and it has totally cured mysterious radio turn off.

I have a bit of experience with semicondutor packaging and such. So let me pass this on: do not put the papter behind the plastic carrier. Instead remove the SIM from the plastic carrier (ain't scarey; just gently lift out a corner and it'll jump out), but BE SURE YOU KNOW WHICH WAY IT IS ORIENTED!!! Now take an Avery label of any kind with a sticky back / peel off. Stick two layers on the back of the chip, trim to size, then just push it back into the plastic carrier. This is much better than putting the paper behind the plastic for two reasons: 1) keeps the chip flat; putting it behind the plastic carrier would bow the chip, and 2) nothing to scrape / roll up / catch an edge when you put it back in.

do not put the papter behind the plastic carrier. Instead remove the SIM from the plastic carrier

I've not had to do this on my Treo (touch wood), but I had always envisaged (and advocated) that the paper would go between the SIM and the carrier. A sticky label sounds like a great enhancement, though might it not be even better to apply it to the carrier rather than the SIM, so that if you change SIMs the solution stays where the problem is, i.e. in the Treo? An artificially thickened SIM may not fit in many other phones.

Good idea about the Avery labels. It simply creates a thicker SIM chip. I like elegant! I'm wondering if this problem of the ill-fitting SIM chip could be causing some of the other instabilities folks are seeing. Could the random resets/crashes be blamed on poorly fitted components in some cases, as well as on software conflicts?

Not planning on moving my SIM into other units, Im not worried about the "non-standard thickness." From my manufacturing days, I suspect the SIM itself is quite faithfully planar, but the plastic carrier might not be perfectly parallel, but more likely the contact pins inside are slightly out of plane or the PCB to which it is attached, and shimming up the SIM just puts more pressure against the contacts. The SD card contactors are more faithful because they move towards the card as it is inserted, but the SIM does nothing more than scrub.

Anyway, I am in my second day, and have had ZERO phone hang ups or anything else flakey; seems to have cured them all. Before, I even had the phone hang up while sitting perfectly still in the charger.

wow you have no idea, I thought it was just me! so happy to read this post. if I tap my treo to hard against something (sometimes just putting it in my pocket triggers this) it will turn the radio off! I'm guessing this paper thing solves it? I'm gonna give it a go, think I'm going to use part of a business card first just to see. how much do I use? how many sticky notes do you use? thanks a million, I feel better already

For a long time that's exactly what I did to solve the radio off randomly problem. I didn't use averylabels, I just cut out two pieces of paper to the same shape as the sim card and put them between the sim card and the sim carrier (like your placement). Never had a radio turn off since then.

Anyways, I recently got a replacement for another issue and this new phone (which had the 1.15 rom in it) doesn't seem to have the same issue. I didn't see any major changes, and the hardware was still revision A, but I just don't seem to have the phone off issues anymore even without the added paper.

codywalker: I used two thickness of labels. Doubt if it is critical. Mine was so sensitive that it would turn off in the cradle; may teenie earthquakes?? Would be interested in knowing if this fixed yours too; sounds as bad as mine wa.

D-caf: since I believe this is a mechanical thing, one unit may be bad and another absolutely unit perfect due to physical manufacturing differences in any of the contact set, holder, PCB placement, etc.